ok what the fuck is happening in ukraine

I guess the time factor matters in terms of giving allies time to decide to help more and the time to actually do so.

Saw a post that basically said Russia, of all countries, should know the logistical headaches of an eastern land war in winter.

The Zelinskyy thing is wild. Dude was literally a comedian playing the President on TV and now he’s the President for real during a fucking war.

Probably ought to be careful about assumptions of how the war is going (particularly based on twitter posts, particularly after things like the Ghost of Kyiv were shown to be false). It took us a month to capture Baghdad, the idea that Putin expected few casualties or a three day ground war is a huge assumption.

If it was a movie plot it would feel hackneyed.

Xp

Also agree with milo, very much want to be hopeful but still feel pretty apprehensive and grim rn.

I think the “pr” battle does matter a lot tho. Putin has gotten away with a lot over the last decade and has suffered what I’d consider light consequences. And what it seems like now is that a lot of nations that would prefer to turn a blind eye are standing up to him. I doubt he expected Germany to agree to a swift ban or for Kazakhstan to refuse to send troops (or maybe he did factor for this, I dunno).
But probably what he fears most is looking weak in front of his people. And that’s where the pr fight can really hurt him.

PR battle does matter but there's a wide gulf between "surprisingly resistant" and "turning the invaders back". hoping like hell for the Ukraine but there's probably a lot of ugliness ahead.

mostly I'm just reading what's being posted so keep it coming please (very helpful)

I get the horrible feeling that things going poorly for Putin translates into Putin flattening Kyiv with tens of thousands of civilian deaths. There is no way Putin is not going to take Kyiv, even if it means Berlin-level destruction

things going badly for putin sure but they've got way more bodies/weaponry at their disposal to throw at whatever this is and the ability to make adjustments

not trying to doomsay but it's only been a couple of days
minute to minute twitter updates can be misleading as to where things are headed
doesnt give you the scope of the whole thing which is kind of what is needed

xpost which would be irredeemable. not that he's currenrlty in any position to be much more than a pariah the rest of his life.

i don't think nato was honestly ever going to invite ukraine -- there was no way for nato to really defend it short of extreme badness -- but tbf flirting with it was a mistake

that said, vlad has now kinda shit the bed? the world thinks the ukrainians are heroes, finland is thinking 'that could be us', and probably the EU is as united as it's ever been. he can still scour ukraine from end to end but that will only make those positions worse

Whether or not Putin successfully takes over let alone holds Ukraine, the fact that he's attempting it at all is the most perplexing. He got away with Crimea, he's been making minor incursions or threats for years. But making good on those threats in this manner, let alone doing so while intimating further aggression, doesn't seem to get him more than he was getting before, and in fact probably leaves him with less, since he's in a much weaker position, possibly at home but certainly internationally. How can anything go back to normal after this? The best Putin could do is withdraw all the troops right now and claim they achieved their objections, whatever those invented objections might be. But he's still be a pariah, and further he does not seem like the kind of guy willing to accept such a blatant humiliation on a global scale. Which means ... he's stuck trying to invade and hold Ukraine? Which leaves him no way out except to further menace and threaten. But that's no way to run a country that wants to be a world player. North Korea, Iran ... they know better than to brazenly invade a neighbor, let alone a neighbor with NATO aspirations, however unrealistic.

Man

Ukrainian soldier to Chechen soldiers who are helping Russians. "The best of you died fighting Putin. The worst, who come to Ukraine to fight us - we are going to play football with your heads". #Ukraine #Russia #Putin #NATO #Kyiv pic.twitter.com/OAlPQ18nob

— Russia-Ukraine Latest News (@RussiaUkraineNs) February 26, 2022

and they're all doing it in the name of this guy

so apparently Zelenskyy won the Ukrainian version of Dancing with the Stars in 2006 and the tape is even better than whatever you're imagining pic.twitter.com/L1gnKD2ISr

— Kat Abu (@abughazalehkat) February 27, 2022

Black and South Asians in Ukraine (some naturalized, others on visa as students) being kept from crossing into Poland as part of refugee migration. https://t.co/SS3yVSuGhK

— Jeet Heer (@HeerJeet) February 27, 2022

Zelensky says Ukraine wants peace but can't negotiate in Belarus, which Russia is currently using to attack it.

"Warsaw, Istanbul, Baku – we offered Russia to hold talks in these cities, or any other city where missiles aren't being launched at Ukraine," he says.

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 27, 2022

Somebody upthread said Terrell Jermaine Starr isn't a good source to follow, but they didn't say why. Anybody elaborate?

He’s a completely bizarre fake-it-til-you-make-it pundit famous for asking people on Twitter to recommend good introductory books on nuclear weapons policy, deleting the tweet and appearing as a ‘nuclear weapons policy expert’ on TV the same week, hanging out with neo-Nazis - leading to the memorable instagram caption “Pravii Sektor in the hizzouse!” and writing a piece called something like “A cop in Kyiv told me he stopped me because I’m Black, and I appreciated it”.

Ok, that kind of makes sense, thanks! I've found it difficult to know with the kinds of accounts you only see after something is happening so you have no real conception of who they are or what they're level of trustworthiness is

I didn't follow a ton of people in Ukraine before, really only the JS developer Stas Klymenko, who's tweeted a little bit about situation in a smaller city SE of Kyiv

retweets are not necessarily endorsements tbf

frequently endorkments tho

retweets are not necessarily endorsements tbf

True, I'm just wary of things that aren't true (especially when difficult to know)

Here’s a good page for sources to follow:

https://www.niemanlab.org/2022/02/follow-war-ukraine/

Whether or not Putin successfully takes over let alone holds Ukraine, the fact that he's attempting it at all is the most perplexing. He got away with Crimea, he's been making minor incursions or threats for years. But making good on those threats in this manner, let alone doing so while intimating further aggression, doesn't seem to get him more than he was getting before, and in fact probably leaves him with less, since he's in a much weaker position, possibly at home but certainly internationally. How can anything go back to normal after this?

i think this is more or less right, certainly in its conclusion. i get why you say it's perplexing - war is obviously de facto insane but it's also hard to see how Putin achieves positive long-term objectives. Otoh it's not perplexing in terms of his stated aims - reconfigure the geopolitics of Russia as a major power player in the world, establish Ukraine as effectively part of the Russian federation or an allied member of it, as it always should have been, for Putin.

The Kofman answer to the important question 'why now?' is that the US effectively posed Putin a question: how can we get stability in russia and its sphere of influence to enable us to focus on geopolitics centred round the south and east china seas. other people would point out factors of political stability at home, legacy building etc. on the political psychology of it, this ft piece by max seddon (not paywalled) is good, even though i'm wary of profile analysis, generally, which tends to select key events in the past to rationalise the present moment. However, the story is fairly compelling, in particular how initial attempts to position Russia as a world power through diplomacy failed - the Iraq war, western support for the colour revolutions.

while we're on perception of individual figures, worth noting that zelensky's general reputation outside ukraine has sometimes been of a political lightweight (in ukraine his popularity has been very high).. this ignored the difficult and quite forceful managing of the russia/EU/NATO politics in favour of the EU. there's a very good ft piece from May last year after the negotiated ceasefire had broken down that covers the history of this. Paywalled i'm afraid (ahem). No question that his leadership during the crisis has been incredible, and this coming directly after the justified criticism of him saying he was going to attend the Munich defence jamboree conference just a couple of weeks ago. emanating good cheer, bravery, steeliness etc.

but as i think someone pointed out upthread, Russia still haven't deployed the majority of their forces on the border, and there are increasing signs that a military target lightning strike (which has had only very partial success) is being replaced with hitting civilian targets. it's very difficult to see Putin 'backing down' and even then it's a question of what sort of 'defeat' is acceptable - certainly we can expect an escalation before then I think, which is unspeakably grim to consider.

On the question of what sort of defeat is acceptable and to consider NATO and Russian objectives, this scenario analysis from prior to the invasion on an eventual position of counter-insurgency is very useful. it outlines all potential outcomes from a point where the original invasion of the country concludes and some form of negotiated settlement is reached. It covers western options from COIN support to no support, and what it means for the country.

https://i.imgur.com/xidswkD.png

there are no good outcomes here - so, yes, to your point JiC, no ' returning to normal' here.

couple of other items, while i'm collecting my thoughts:

Brest, #Belarus, a few kilometers from the border with Poland, the NATO country. All equipment is marked with the letter V. We are asking Belarusians to send us information🇷🇺 troops.

By deploying the troops on the border with Poland, Putin also wants to threaten NATO pic.twitter.com/AiqSifZQOZ

— Hanna Liubakova (@HannaLiubakova) February 26, 2022

this is v concerning obviously, as it widens the points of aggression. unverified at the moment as the tweet says.

i haven't been through all the analysis at Janes, but it looks it looks useful as you might expect (lol i remember a military history fanatic at a school i worked in when i was 20, who had all the Janes annuals on his bookshelves, and having never heard of it, i was wtf is this - seemed such an odd name for the subject matter - i thought it was like country life or something).

kofman on the shift in tactics:

I think today we've seen a shift in Russian targeting towards critical civilian infrastructure, greater use of MLRS, and artillery in suburban areas. Unfortunately, my concern that this was going to get a lot more ugly and affect civilians is starting to materialize.

— Michael Kofman (@KofmanMichael) February 27, 2022

https://i.imgur.com/tK434HI.jpg

i should add, that Shari Vari is obv v much the expert in this area, but i do find it useful to have a place to order my thoughts and reading.

the targeting of not only ukranian civilian affecting infrastructure but other strategic development components that would set back ukrainian state independence was about the only thing i could see a lightning strike achieving

i think they were aiming to take control of airfields and key infrastructure to disable the military, and effectively enable the surrender of the government. hasn’t happened. to say the least.

Putin is finished, but the unravelling might take quite a while, and will probably also entail reducing Kyiv to rubble. I just can't see this ending in any way that is not horrible.

I think we’re all in the same boat of speculating and trying to figure things out.

I suspect we won’t know the ‘why now?’ bit for a while. There are lots of potential factors that could have contributed (Russian bullishness on the back of relatively successful campaigns in Syria and Libya, nervousness about Lukashenko’s long term future, Zelenskiy’s popularity dipping through COVID leading to increased government pressure on Russia-leaning media / oligarchs and the prospect of him being replaced by more hardline nationalists, etc) but there was no obvious reason we know of to escalate from recognition of the breakaway republics, and ratcheting up pressure, to full scale invasion so quickly.

It’s definitely plausible that Putin thought this would be over pretty quickly, with Kyiv forced into unpalatable concessions within a week or two. That’s still possible now, though perhaps more on the lines of negotiation than surrender. If that happens, it remains to be seen how much of the good will Zelenskiy has generated with the groups that considered him weak for talking about peace when he was elected carries over.

Things do have potential to become much worse over the next few weeks and the only hope is that the base unpopularity of the war at home provides a counterweight. Only about 45% of people supported recognition of the republics, vs 90% for Crimea. It’s reasonable to assume that fewer will have supported the war as sold (a limited police action to target nationalists, not ‘our brothers in the Ukrainian army’ / civilians, etc). The war as fought has already been substantially worse and, however hard they try to limit reporting, that’s not easy to hide. Start going down the route of mass shelling of civilians, etc, many of whom will have friends and family in Russia, and it’s impossible for there not to be domestic outrage. How much that matters…

I found this (from a Youtuber I'm already a fan of) to be highly illuminating:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=If61baWF4GE

ive a tenner on ukraine got in at 15:1 so fingers crossed they get the result

Putin: "Western countries aren't only taking unfriendly economic actions against our country, but leaders of major Nato countries are making aggressive statements about our country. So I order to move Russia's deterrence forces to a special regime of duty." pic.twitter.com/AC1yHncqZc

— max seddon (@maxseddon) February 27, 2022

every time I realise Tom Lehrer is still with us, I wonder if we will truly all go together when we go...

― imago, Wednesday, 24 November 2021 16:34 (three months ago) bookmarkflaglink

sorry 4 apocalypseposting lol

Ok, I’m starting to get kinda terrified now

Using nukes makes no sense, then again invading Ukraine didn’t either and I don’t exactly trust Putins judgment right now

I saw elsewhere that Putin can’t launch nukes on his own and a general would need to sign off/follow through (I’m not sure of what actual steps are involved). But I don’t think anyone is going to want to be a part of mass murder on that scale (launching an attack and then dying along with the rest of Russia/civilization) simply because Putin’s war isn’t going well.
NATO soldiers (hypothetically) marching into Russian territory is when I’d start thinking it’s a concern.

sorry but i lol’d

Same energy. pic.twitter.com/U72AUEzjsA

— Eddie Burfi (@EddieBurfi) February 27, 2022

I get anxious about nukes, too, but the nukes have been there all along. Their implicit threat is part of their purpose, no matter who wields them.

Meanwhile:

This is a huge deal. Russia will inevitably retaliate and shut its airspace to Canada, which cuts off many of the great circle routes that go over the top of the world.

It also puts a measure of pressure on the US to do the same. https://t.co/icTCtUQKs9

— Oren Liebermann (@OrenCNN) February 27, 2022

This is all based on fog of war, incomplete info etc but so far it is feeling like a lot of people, including myself, and including Russia itself, overestimated Russia’s military capabilities. Putin is good at playing a weak hand strong and it’s starting to feel like he did that here, hoping the Ukrainian govt would just fold and he could quickly March to Kyiv and install a puppet (with “democratic” approval of the people of Ukraine at some point after). I am afraid to be too sure of anything with the nuclear threat looming, with the possibility that much more indiscriminate attacks on civilians could be launched, etc. But I can’t see so far that any strategic aim is being achieved and Russia’s invasion is looking haphazard and confused.

people are claiming the US and nato won't do anything if russia does launch a nuclear warhead because it has 6000 of them, which is enough to destroy the entire world. i guess these same people think putin would rather destroy the entire world if he can't annex ukraine

also i do wonder how easy it is for those in charge of launching the nuke to accidentally launch it, kind of like the flawed design and poor handling in chernobyl

and a team associated with princeton have mocked up one scenario:

https://sgs.princeton.edu/the-lab/plan-a

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2jy3JU-ORpo

in that scenario, the safest places to be would be latin america, africa, south asia and austrlia. arguably, it might be safe to be in canada, but major cities being so close to the US border would undoubtedly cause some damage, as a handful of warheads would be directed at all major US cities, including seattle

Don't think we need to have "what if nukes go off accidentally" chat right now.

thank you

Quite. My only thought as such is that if the talk about this from Putin being aimed more domestically is true (and I'd buy that) then that in of itself is a crazy situation because -- if you're just a Russian normie who watches domestic news etc -- in the space of a week your leader has publicly gone, in full broadcast/TV speeches, from "gotta a little problem here that history demands we address, just a heads up" to "could the Ukrainian armed forces please depose their leader" to "don't worry we've got nukes." Which...might not universally read well.

⚡️⚡️#Georgian sailors refused to refuel the Russian ship

The flashmob is very interesting. Every #Russian ship should hear this phrase anywhere in the world. pic.twitter.com/ApJsVKMKFa

— NEXTA (@nexta_tv) February 27, 2022

At the end of the day, I think Putin's one non-negotiable goal is maintaining his grip on power. As has been mentioned in this thread, he can live with being a pariah on the world stage and debilitating sanctions, as long as he can maintain his grip on power. In some ways, isolation may enable him to enact ever more draconian social controls. The only question is if there is any credible threat of an internal coup or a determined popular uprising that could threaten his grip on power. I think underneath all of his long-winded historic analysis of the Ukraine-Russian relationship as justification for his policies, perhaps the core of his fear and hatred of the Ukrainian regime stems from the fact that it resulted from a popular uprising, which is probably one of the only possible threats he perceives to his power. I think he has already made the calculation that sanctions will be a wash. They will cause more grumbling, but will also give him justification for a more isolated and totalitarian Russian state. He may be surprised by how quickly sanctions have ratcheted up. As an amoral autocratic sociopath, one thing he may have trouble anticipating is how quickly widespread moral outrage can shift the behavior of democratic governments. By all accounts, sanctions are getting much more severe than anyone anticipated at this stage. That means threats of further sanctions lose their effectiveness, but its not clear if they had much effect anyway. As has been mentioned, his reluctance to cause massive civilian casualties is probably more a factor of domestic political repercussions than fears of sanctions.

For those who don't speak Russian, at the end, the Russian ship complains that they're about to run out of fuel one more time, and the Georgians tell them to break out the ores and start rowing.

🔥 🔥 🔥

— Artem Russakovskii 🇺🇦 (@ArtemR) February 27, 2022

so far it is feeling like a lot of people, including myself, and including Russia itself, overestimated Russia’s military capabilities

People have been overestimating Russia in almost every realm for decades IMO. Russia is a very large, very poor country that is still somehow able to present a veneer of wealth and power*, mostly because of the credulity of mediots.

*yes, this is true of the US as well but the US is richer and more powerful, with more allies, bought and paid-for though they might be.

huge breaking news at BP:

- BP to exit its 20% stake in Russian oil giant Rosneft

- BP chief executive Bernard Looney to resign from board of Rosneft with immediate effect

— Jim Pickard (@PickardJE) February 27, 2022

First, we are shutting down the EU airspace for Russian-owned, Russian registered or Russian-controlled aircraft.
 
They won’t be able to land in, take off or overfly the territory of the EU.
 
Including the private jets of oligarchs. pic.twitter.com/o551M9zekQ

— Ursula von der Leyen (@vonderleyen) February 27, 2022

Putin, personally, might not care, but millions of other people certainly must care. And what could Putin possibly do to change any of this at this point, anyway, besides make more threats? All these sanctions and punishments and restrictions rolling in, it's not like they're going to be or even can be reversed overnight, can they? Even if he brings all his troops home tonight he has amplified the international distrust of his leadership 100 fold. At this point he might as well get Kim Jong-un's current address, because he's going to be limited to a few close penpals on the global scale.

As has been mentioned, his reluctance to cause massive civilian casualties is probably more a factor of domestic political repercussions than fears of sanctions.

― o. nate, Sunday, 27 February 2022 16:54 (twenty-six minutes ago) link

I took it more to be a function of his strategic aims in Ukraine (which are failing anyway). He wanted to install a puppet with a veneer of democratic support from Ukrainians. Leveling half of Ukraine wasn't really going to serve that goal. It turns out neither did invading.